eBay redesign takes page from Pinterest

The Internet mainstay eBay is getting a hip-looking makeover for the modern Web.

The first step in that redesign is a new home page, which draws inspiration from Pinterest and endless tiles of products. The new eBay page rolls out over the next 100 days and, in the coming weeks, eBay will also streamline navigation and touch up other areas of the site, including “view item” pages.

New eBay shopping pageNew eBay shopping page

When you visit the new home page—you can opt-in right now—the site asks you to pick at least five areas of interest so it can recommend items you might want to buy. The eBay home page then presents a never-ending flow of thumbnail images for each item.

A brief item name and starting price pops up as you hover over each item, and you can add items to your watch list directly from the home page.

It looks pretty, but it needs more functionality to make browsing faster. There's no way to filter items, by price or by bidding status for example, so the signal-to-noise ratio always skews high. Also, when you hover over an item, there's no indication of whether the price shown is the starting price, current bid, or “Buy It Now” price, and the cost of shipping isn't shown.

These may seem like minor quibbles, but they slow down the speed of window-shopping. That's a problem considering how many items are available for sale through the site. (eBay says it has nearly 25 million sellers and 350 million listings.)

A single item's eBay page

Even as I write this, my feed is constantly offering new items—a dozen here, 30 there—so products that showed up when I first opened the feed are nowhere to be found. More efficient ways of filtering and browsing would help immensely.

At the very least, though, the redesign is fun. Even if I can't be bothered to pick through all the guitars, laptops, retro video games, and conga drums that are passing through eBay's new home page, it's nice to think of the possibilities as they flow by.

eBay Now information page

The new home page isn't the only thing eBay is launching today. The company also debuts eBay Now, its same-day retail delivery service, to the public after launching it in beta in San Francisco two months ago. An iOS app is available.

The service allows users to purchase products for same-day delivery from select retailers, including Macy's, Target, and Best Buy. It's only available in San Francisco for now but, according to The Next Web, it will launch in New York soon. There's no word on when eBay Now will launch in other cities.